The last camel died at noon, page 35
'No luck?' Emerson inquired. Then he translated 'Good fortune has not attended your efforts?'
'Not yet,' said Nastasen. 'But soon it will. I am glad you are here to see.' Turning, he indicated the stone slab. 'This is a secret place, known to only a few. I did not think the boy could know of it. When I find him, I will ask how he found out.'
He pressed the heels of both hands into shallow indentations under the edge of the slab. Pesaker rolled his eyes and started to expostulate, but he was too late; the slab started to rise and the secret place was secret no longer - not from us, nor from the staring guards.
Nastasen snatched a lamp from one of the men and leaned over the hole. His voice echoed hollowly. 'He is not here.'
'He has retreated into the passage out of sight,' said Pesaker. 'Let the men go and look for him, my prince - since now they know the secret.'
The men were more intelligent than their prince. The implications of that ominous remark were not lost upon them, and it was with extremely dour expressions that they descended, one by one, into a dark maze from which they might or might not come out.
I reached for Emerson's hand. It gripped mine with bruising force. My heart was thudding against my ribs. There was a good chance that Ramses could elude them, but I didn't know whether to hope they would find him or that they would not.
A voice boomed hollowly from the bottom of the stairs. 'He is not here, my prince.'
'Search farther back,' Nastasen shouted.
'How far, my prince?'
'Until you find him, you stupid (a small rodent of unsanitary habits).'
Murtek cleared his throat. 'My prince - forgive this low person - but he is only a child, and too young to know fear of dark places. If this leads to the tunnels, he can avoid large clumsy men forever. Would it not be better to (entice, persuade, lure) him to come out?'
Nastasen considered this novel idea. The light of the single remaining lamp reflected from his eyeballs. 'Yes,' he said finally. 'It is my judgment that we should entice him to come out. You - woman - call your son.'
So distraught was I that I might actually have done so, had not the High Priest of Amon intervened. He was shaking with exasperation. 'My prince, the boy will not come out if he knows we are here. It may be he is too far away to hear his mother's voice. If you will let me speak...' He drew Nastasen aside and muttered at him.
It ended with Nastasen doing what any sensible person would have done at the beginning - closing the trapdoor and withdrawing, leaving two men on watch. Pesaker had to explain to him why guards were necessary - to keep us from escaping the same way - and there was some argument as to whether the men down below should be shut in with the fugitive. Nastasen was all in favour, but Murtek finally convinced him that they would only drive Ramses farther from the stairs and perhaps cause him to lose his way.
That was now my greatest fear. Almost I would have preferred the dungeons. The thought of Ramses wandering alone and in utter darkness, his throat parched for lack of water - losing hope, crying out for help, dashing himself against the stony walls as he ran panic-stricken through the endless night of the tunnels - falling, at last, to perish in lingering torment... I tried to banish the hideous sights from my mind, but I failed; and when at last the intruders left us, I had no difficulty at all in bursting into tears.
'Don't worry, ma'am, we'll find him,' Reggie exclaimed, patting my hand.
'Come and lie down, my dear,' said Emerson, leading me into my sleeping chamber.
Having thus attained the degree of privacy we required, I attempted to stop crying and was surprised to find I could not. Emerson took me in his arms and I muffled my sobs against his manly bosom. 'He'll be all right, Peabody.'
'In the dark, all alone, lost...'
'Hush, my dear. I'll lay you odds he is not lost, but could retrace his steps at any time. And he is not in the dark.'
'What?' I raised my head. Emerson pressed it firmly back against his breast. 'Sssh! I saw it when Nasty held his lamp over the opening - a burned matchstick, deliberately placed on the topmost step.'
After checking the accoutrements.on my belt I discovered that a candle and a considerable quantity of matches were missing from the waterproof tin in which I kept them. Since Ramses could not have taken them that morning, he must have stowed them away the night before in the expectation of some such emergency arising, and therefore it was quite possible he had also supplied himself with food and water and whatever other commodities he deemed necessary.
'He might at least have had the courtesy to inform me of what he was planning,' I said crossly, replacing the matches and the two remaining candles. 'I never heard of anything so inconsiderate and ill-considered. What the devil does he think he is doing? He can't stay down there forever. And how are we supposed to find him when -'
'He was considerate enough to leave the burned match,' said Emerson.
'He probably dropped it accidentally.'
'He must have lit his candle or his lamp before he opened the trapdoor, Peabody. There are no windows in those back rooms; he could not have found his way, or located the spring that opens the trap, without light. No, I am sure the match was a sign, meant for our eyes only and intended to convey precisely what it did - that he has taken every possible precaution and will reestablish communication when it is safe to do so.'
He was trying to comfort me, and he succeeded - for a while. The situation was not as dire as I had first believed, but it was bad enough. Knowing that he suffered too, I put on a cheerful face and apologised for my momentary weakness, to which he responded with his customary graciousness. 'Feel free to break down again anytime Peabody. I rather enjoyed it.'
Nagging worry about Ramses made me all the more anxious to get on with my plan for rendering Amenit hors de combat. Reggie was a complication I had not expected, and I wished with all my heart that Nasty, as Emerson had taken to calling him, had not returned the young man. A few days more in the dungeon would not have hurt him.
As soon as I was able, I took Amenit aside and warned her not to mention our scheme to her lover. 'If you tell him, he will say what all men do, that he loves you as you are. He believes that, but it is not true. Let it be a surprise when you show yourself in all your new beauty.'
She agreed that this was an excellent plan.
Leaving Emerson to distract Reggie with far-fetched suggestions for escape, I retired with Amenit to my room, where the supplies I had requested had been brought. I made quite a performance of it, crooning 'incantations' in Latin and Hebrew as I mixed and stirred and blended.
I had been teasing my dear Emerson when I claimed to be carrying arsenic and other poisons (though it might not be a bad idea to have something of the sort on hand in the future).
Had I been in dear old England, I could have gleaned numerous deadly substances from the fields and hedgerows. No such richness was available to me here, and the purgatives, of which I always carried an ample supply, acted too quickly for my purposes. I did not want the girl to blame her illness on my ministrations.
I had one thing on hand that would have done the trick - a necklace given me by one of my ladies-in-waiting after I had admired the pretty mottled black-and-brown beads. They were castor beans, from which castor oil is extracted. Cooking destroys the poison, so castor oil was perfectly safe, but these beans had not been cooked before being strung, only dried. There was enough poison in my necklace to dispatch Amenit and half a dozen of the guards.
But did I dare administer it? I had crushed the seeds and set them to soak in cold water. I could probably persuade Amenit to drink some of it under the pretext that it would beautify her from the inside out, but I had not the faintest idea how potent the brew might be. It might have no effect at all, it might induce the cramps and digestive distress I wanted - or it might put an end to her.
I am a Christian woman. I set the liquid aside.
I had washed her hair and plastered her face and arms with a paste of my own invention when the second intrusion of the day occurred - the familiar noises of marching feet and clashing weapons. It was getting monotonous.
Amenit reacted as any woman would when the intimate secrets of the toilette are in danger of being exposed. In other words, she squealed and shrieked and looked around for a place in which to hide. She really was a dreadful sight; I had added some pounded herbs to the mess, for colour, and she looked as if she were wearing a copper mask suffering severely from verdigris. 'Don't wash it off,' I warned, handing her her veils. 'You will spoil the magic.'
I heard Emerson call my name. Wiping a few flecks of the green paste from my forearms (I had taken care to apply it with a cloth), I hurried into the reception room.
Nastasen had not honoured us with his personal attention this time. In command of the troop of soldiers was one of the nobles who had attended our impromptu dinner party.
I greeted him with a bow and a polite 'Good afternoon,' which seemed to fluster him. He started to reply in kind, and got as far as, 'The gods favour -' before he recollected himself. 'You come,' he said, scowling.
'I really am rather busy,' I replied. 'Can't this wait?'
'Don't push him too far, Peabody,' said Emerson, repressing a smile. 'We seem to be wanted; it would be more dignified to go of our own accord instead of being forced.'
'Oh, certainly, Emerson. Is Reggie also invited?'
Reggie was. Since the dramatic change in our status we had taken to wearing our regular clothing all the time in order to be prepared for unexpected visits, so we were properly attired, and I managed to snatch up my parasol as we were led to the door. This time no litters were provided; we walked, entirely surrounded by guards. I observed, however, that our escort kept a respectful distance; in fact, they seemed wary of so much as touching Emerson. He noticed too, and amused himself by wandering suddenly to one side or the other and watching the men skip quickly out of his way.
'Professor, are you mad?' demanded Reggie, who was walking behind us. 'Don't provoke them. We are walking on a sword's edge as it is.'
'Do you know what this is all about?' Emerson asked.
'No. No, I have no idea. It can't be the crowning ceremony, it is still several days off.'
'So I thought,' said Emerson. 'This is probably another of Nasty's little tricks to unnerve us. I refuse to be unnerved.'
'You have had your fun, though, my dear,' I said, taking his arm. 'Behave yourself. And brace yourself. Nastasen's little tricks may live up to his nickname.'
Brisk exercise and fresh air did us good, though the weather was not salubrious. A haze of sand dimmed the sun, without diminishing its fiery heat. I was short of breath - with anxious anticipation as much as fatigue - by the time we reached our destination - the great gates of the palace, where I had once gone to visit the dowager queen.
Her apartments had been in the open, with courtyards and pretty gardens surrounding them. We went nowhere near this part of the structure, but marched on through increasing gloom into the rock-cut chambers at the rear of the structure. They were no less imposing; in fact, the shadows lent them an eerie majesty suited to their purpose, for they were obviously the state apartments of the ruling monarch, adorned with statues, hangings, and painted walls. Here were none of the gentle scenes of birds and flowering plants and running animals that had decorated the palaces of Amarna which Emerson and I had excavated, only representations of the king's majesty and martial prowess. The iron-bound wheels of his chariot crushed the enemies who had fallen before his arrows; his upraised club dashed out the brains of a kneeling captive.
Finally we entered a room of greater size than any we had seen. Dozens of torches and lamps served only to illumine the central portion; the far-off ceiling was a canopy of shadows, and darkness formed the side walls. On a platform straight ahead stood a chair covered with gold foil. The legs were those of a lion; lions' heads formed the front of the armrests. It was empty except for an object that rested on the cushioned seat. A smooth, bulbous white shape, cradled in a frame of stiffened blood-red reeds - the ancient Double Crown, which had signified the unification of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt but which in this forlorn and dying oasis recalled only a memory of vanished glory.
The room was full of people. They stood still as statues, but eyes glittered from the shadows, and I saw that they represented all the classes of this strange society. Rank on rank of armed soldiers; courtiers and nobles, men and women alike, in their rich garb; even a group of the rekkit, herded into a separate enclosure and closely guarded.
At the foot of the steps leading up to the throne and at right angles to it was another chair, also carved and gilded but less ornate. Facing it were three plain wooden chairs, with seats of woven reeds. To these we were led.
'We are to be spectators rather than performers, it seems,' remarked Emerson. He spoke in a normal voice, but echoes amplified the sound, and the watching eyes flashed, as if they had rolled towards us and then rolled back.
After we had seated ourselves, nothing happened for a long time, and I occupied myself by studying the room and its furnishings. There is a trick of adjusting the eyes to comparative darkness; by focusing on the most shadowy portions of the chamber and avoiding looking at the lamps, I began to make out details that had eluded me before. A row of squat, stubby columns ran the length of the room, approximately one-third of the way across; I assumed another such row was behind me. Behind the throne platform was a doorway, discernible only as a square of deeper blackness. To the right of the door another, wider opening appeared...
A cold chill rippled through me. The opening was not a doorway. It was a recess, an alcove, deep and wide; and it was not empty. What in heaven's name was the - thing - within? Not lifeless stone, though it bulked as large as a carved boulder. It lived; I sensed, rather than saw, movement. I heard - was it the echo of my own agitated breath or the harsh breathing of some huge beast? I saw a faint glimmer of reflected light...
Then I saw no more therein, for torchlight brightened the rectangle of the doorway. The torchbearers took up positions behind the chair at the foot of the dais. A group of priests followed, led by Pesaker; they turned to their left and lined up shoulder to shoulder before the opening of the recess. I had the odd impression that they were not so much protecting what lay within as preventing it from coming out.
Was it a beast after all? The pharaohs of Egypt hunted lions, and although the lordly creatures had vanished from Egypt proper, they were still to be found in Nubia. A captive lion, fed on human flesh trained to mangle and kill the enemies of the king... I would greatly dislike being eaten by a lion. I would dislike even more being forced to watch Ramses eaten by one.
'Oh, dear,' I murmured.
'Peabody?' Emerson glanced questioningly at me.
'I think perhaps you were right, my dear, when you said my imagination was too well developed.'
Further discussion was ended by the appearance of Nastasen, in full regalia. His pleated linen robe, his golden sandals and heavy jewelled collar, were those of a pharaoh; the sword at his belt had a hilt of rock crystal set in gold. The only thing missing was the crown, and oh! what a lustful glance he cast upon it as he passed the throne and seated himself in the chair below it.
Another heavy silence ensued. How theatrical these people were! The delay was, and was intended to be, unnerving - at least it would have unnerved persons who were not trained, as we were, in the traditions of British pluck. Emerson stifled a yawn, I let my eyelids droop as if in boredom, and Nastasen decided to get on with it. He raised the gilded staff he carried and called out, 'Bring them in! Bring the guilty to cower before the vengeance of the god!'
Half-expecting to see Ramses and Tarek, I was momentarily relieved to behold instead a little group of people wearing native garb. My relief was short-lived when I recognised the men, and realised that there were several women and small children in the group. Emerson uttered an oath (which was quite justified, but which I will not record) and started to rise. He was pulled back into his seat by a noose that was dropped over his head and pulled tight across his chest. I felt a similar constraint bind my shoulders and arms to the chair; a swift glance to my right assured me Reggie had been treated the same.
These men are twice traitors,' Nastasen announced. 'First for failing in their duty. Twice for giving their souls to the white magician. They will die, together with their families. But because they fought bravely in the service of my father the king, and because the magician cast his spell upon them, they will receive the honour of dying at the hand of the Heneshem(?).'
The ranks of priests before the alcove parted and a man emerged from it. He was no taller than the shortest of the priests, but he bulked twice as large, and all of his bulk was muscle. He wore only a loincloth; his entire body, including his head, had been shaved in accordance with the requirements of ritual purity. Heavy supra-orbital ridges and bulging cheeks reduced his eyes to small black circles, cold and polished as obsidian beads. His mouth was a wide lipless line, like a cut in dead flesh. So thick was his neck that his head appeared to rest directly on his massive shoulders. He looked as if he could crush a normal human body with his bare arms, but he carried a weapon - a spear whose blade was dark with old stains except for its point and edges, which gleamed like polished silver.
